Shooting victim's death stuns friends, relatives

The 31-year-old computer technician preferred spending quiet nights at his Bowie townhouse with his fiancee, who is eight months' pregnant.

In recent months, the two would spend hours watching baby shows on the Discovery Health Channel and thinking of names for their firstborn child. They settled on Aria.

"Andre was truly about family," said his fiancee, Adoria Doucette.

On Feb. 28, Summers was fatally shot as he defended his younger sister at a party in Crofton, according to witnesses. They said he had gone outside to help Michele Summers escort her former boyfriend, Anthony Lane, and a companion, Nathaniel Campbell, from a party at her home that they had crashed.

Campbell was charged with one count of first-degree murder, and Lane was charged with second-degree assault and three counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Friends and relatives are still in disbelief that a man whom they called a homebody and a "kind, spirited soul" would be shot during a fight.

"Nobody anywhere would ever dream that Andre would die like that," Doucette said.

The two-story red brick townhouse that Summers and Doucette shared gives clues about his personality.

Real estate books are stacked on the kitchen table because he had been studying for his licensing exam the day he was killed. A pool table stands in place of a dining table near the kitchen. Doucette said a mutual love of the game helped cement their relationship.

When it was on, the large, flat-screen television was always tuned to one of two stations, ESPN or the Discovery Health Channel, Doucette said.

Summers played basketball nearly every day and was a wide receiver on the semiprofessional football team, the Prince George's Cardinals.

The couple also attended professional sports games and traveled to places such as Jamaica, Germany and Hawaii through Doucette's job as a special events coordinator.

With fatherhood on the way, Summers had taken a liking to baby shows. The couple watched programs such as Birth Day and Babies: Special Delivery, Doucette said.

`He was so excited'

"The baby was everything to him," she said. "He was so excited." Whenever he had something important to do, Doucette said, Summers would rub her belly, and "charge up on baby power."

Summers also was close with his niece and two nephews, relatives said.

Most of his family - an older sister and brother and two younger sisters - live near their parents, Frank and Yvonne Summers, in Upper Marlboro.

Gene Solomon, 33, who attended Largo High School with Summers, described his lifelong friend as "kind-spirited and peaceful."

"It's a real shame what happened to him because he's the kind of person that wouldn't start any trouble," Solomon said.

Feb. 28 started predictably for Summers, Doucette said. He arose early and studied in the kitchen for his real estate licensing exam. About mid-afternoon, the couple went on a drive to look at properties in the Washington area that they dreamed of purchasing.

At dinnertime, the two headed toward Crofton to attend a birthday party that Summers' sister was throwing for her boyfriend.

They arrived in the quiet townhouse community of Crofton Square - an area not unlike where Summers and Doucette live - about 7:30 p.m. and mingled with the dozen or so guests in attendance.

A violent end

Later that night, Lane, 38, and Campbell, 22, arrived at the party.

The two were asked to leave, and as they did, a fight broke out in the parking lot, according to court documents charging the pair in the crime.

A friend of Michele Summers asked Andre Summers to go outside and help get Lane and Campbell to leave, said Doucette, who had been sitting with him in the living room. She watched Summers walk out the front door, never guessing it would be the last time she would see him alive.

Outside, loud voices evolved into by the sounds of punching and shoving, and some witnesses said they heard Lane ask Campbell to "go get that" or "get the joint," the charging documents state.

Campbell walked toward a vehicle and returned with a gun, Anne Arundel County police said, and then he opened fire on a crowd. Doucette said she heard about a dozen bursts of gunfire.

Michele Summers, 27, was shot in the left hip. Falduti, 28, the neighbor, was shot in the right leg.

Both were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore and later released.

Andre Summers was shot in the back. He was taken to the Anne Arundel Medical Center near Annapolis, where his family was told that he had not survived.

A wake for Summers will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at St. Stephen's Baptist Church at 5757 Temple Hills Road in Temple Hills. A funeral will be tomorrow morning at the same location.

Doucette said she plans to give birth at the same hospital where her fiance died. She and other relatives said they are only able to move on by trusting God and focusing on the baby.

"This is going to be a blessed baby," said neighbor, Rena Bland, last week as she rubbed Doucette's belly.